FAITH PLUS

Faith alone is not enough. Not even faith plus hope plus love. That’s not enough. In theory these three may be what we need to have in order to lead a Christian life. But theories, even facts, only go so far. When reality is played out, something more is usually necessary. That something, at least as far as our faith-hope-love is concerned, is patience. Patience, that which allows us to keep the faith when it is all too easy to give up on God because our prayers are not being answered as quickly or in the manner in which we would like. Patience: that which gives us the strength to go on, knowing, in spite of everything to the contrary, that there is a future to hope in. Patience: that which enables us to keep on giving of ourself to the other even when the other slaps the other cheek again and again.

Patience, it seems to me, is what gives us the ability to be a people, a person of faith, hope and love. That is not to say that patience is a greater virtue than these three. It is not. A supremely patient person may simply be an idiot: one who gets kicked in the teeth for no good reason and just takes it, also for no good reason. Or s/he may be oblivious to what is going on and/or could care less.

No, patience is the strengthening agent of faith—hope—love. It allows us to put all things into perspective rather than going off half-cocked in every direction. With it we can keep the faith, hang on to hope and learn to love. Without it: disaster.

A patient in a hospital needs patience. Faith in the doctors, hope for recovery, and love for one’s own self-worth are important. But the healing process is always slow. An impatient patient delays and can even prevent altogether physical healing.

The same is true not only for spiritual healing in particular but for the spiritual (Christian) life in general. We certainly need to have faith in God. That’s a given. No faith in God: no faith. We believe God can and will answer our prayers; but in God’s own time and in God’s own way. Thus we must be patient.

Even if today is good, we always hope that tomorrow will be even better. If today is bad we hope tomorrow will be not so bad: better, unless, of course, we have no faith. If it is not better, that which will keep us from despair is patience. That doesn’t mean we’re laid back. It means that we give God the time to do God’s thing while we do our thing: hang in there patiently, giving even more of ourself—which is what love is all about. Impatient love is a contradiction in terms. Love is always patient (as St. Paul reminds) — by definition. Love takes time to grow. That’s why patience is necessary.

But it is never easy. Never. That’s because we need to be impatiently patient. Sounds crazy, I know. But look at it this way: we have to be impatiently patient with God. On the one hand, we have to give God time to do God’s will. On the other, we have to keep bugging God to do it. Same with hope: sure, we believe, even know, the bad will get better, the pain will lessen, the wound will heal. But hurry up, will you, God. And God will, hurry it up. We just have to keep banging on God’s door.

Same with love, we give of ourself. The other isn’t getting the message. So we give more and more, sometimes just because we’re impatient for a response. And that may be the only way to get the message across: to overwhelm the other with love. Isn’t that how Jesus did it? There still and always will remain these three: faith, hope and love—plus impatient patience.